What is Kinomics?

Kinomics is the study of the kinome, a global description of kinases and kinase signaling. Since kinases drive numerous signaling pathways in biology (both normal and disease), determining the pertinent kinases in a biological system is of high importance. There are several different ways to study the kinome: RNA interference, mass spectrometry, and antibody arrays, just to name a few.

In our facility, we utilize the PamStation®12 (PamGene International) Kinomic Array platform to study the kinome. This system utilizes a high content peptide microarray containing phosphorylatable tyrosine (PTK chip) or serine/threonine (STK chip) residues within kinase substrates. Active kinases within a sample will phosphorylate specific peptides on the microarray to generate a kinomic profile, or fingerprint.

Kinomic profiles can help elucidate cellular signaling pathways driving particular biological processes and phenotypes and be used to identify and develop biomarkers.